Desmond Bagley · 1980 · thriller

Desmond Bagley's 1980 thriller. Tom Mangan has built a hotel empire out of Bahamian sun and sand, and then everything begins to go wrong at once - a hurricane, a ship lost, an outbreak in his kitchens, his family destroyed. It looks like the worst luck in the islands until Mangan starts to count the coincidences and realises somebody is doing it to him.

1. 1
   Nassau

   In Nassau, the hotelier Tom Mangan runs a business built on nothing but sunshine, water and the goodwill of tourists - and then a hurricane, a family tragedy and a run of impossible bad luck begin to take it apart.

2. 2
   Freeport

   On Grand Bahama the pattern repeats: a poisoning outbreak in the kitchens, whispers in the American press, cancellations by the thousand - too neat and too well-timed to be the accidents everyone assures him they are.

3. 3
   Miami

   In Miami, Mangan hires investigators and starts tracing the rumours back to their source, and finds an organisation with the money and the patience to break a country's tourist trade for reasons of its own.

4. 4
   Andros

   The answer lies out among the cays and the blue holes of Andros, in the fresh water the islands cannot live without - and Mangan must get there before the last and worst of the sabotage is done.